Power Automate license enforcement - looking at it from a Dynamics 365 CE perspective

Mid May 2023, a warning popped up in Microsoft Message Center regarding "Non-Compliant Power Automate Flows" -  soon after the message however disappeared so this got probably missed by the majority of Dataverse and Dynamics 365 admins.

This however raised some concerns in the broader Microsoft community ( see Will Power Automate enforcement licensing kill your flows?  and Upcoming licensing enforcement in Power Automate explained ). 

To be honest I did not pay a lot of attention since the message apparently vanished in thin air and after consultation with Microsoft support they said that this message was sent prematurely. But then, end of October another warning popped up.

So it seems that Microsoft is finally cracking down on Power Automate flows which are not associated with a properly licensed user for premium connectors or Power Automate flows not directly linked to a Power App. When you built your own model-driven app on top of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) which uses Power Automate flows, you will need to associate the Power Automate Flow with with your new app.

There is a PowerShell script to identify the flows which at risk to be turned off  across your tenant - see I have many environments - how can I get the flows that need my attention across tenants in the Power Automate Licensing FAQ - which uses the Get-AdminFlowAtRiskOfSuspension cmdlet

The Get-AdminFlowAtRiskOfSuspension cmdlet is part of a separate PowerShell module which you can install using Install-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell. It will run a scan of your environments and outline

Check out Associate flows with apps - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn on how you need to link up a flow with an app (see below screenshot on where to do this in the Power Automate flow detail screen). If you make this change on a flow which is a part of a solution, then the associations will be part of the solution file and can be transported cross environments.

Related articles/blog posts:

• Will Power Automate enforcement licensing kill your flows?
• Upcoming licensing enforcement in Power Automate explained
• Flows in app context - is there a clear definition of what it means?
• How do you license Power Automate flows when using them with Power Apps

Update to Power Platform and Dynamics 365 request limits and allocations

Microsoft updated the Power Platform and Dynamics 365 request limits and allocations (also referred to as entitlement limits) end of last year and upped the allocated limits significantly, which is great news. At the same time Microsoft also announced their planning on enforcement of the API request limits and availability of reports to track the number of API calls at tenant level (reports expected in first quarter of 2022 - long awaited since it first announced in 2019) 

All table/entity CRUD operations - both calls that originate from internal and external sources will count towards a tenant level allocation of requests in a 24 hour window. If you go above this allocated limit you are expected to buy additional API licensing packs. 

Especially external integrations and/or business logic (even plugin executions count against these limits) might cause spikes in API calls but so far not a lot of attention was paid to it especially since the limits are currently not enforced. 

These integrations typically use non-licensed users ( e.g. application users, non-interactive users, administrative users or System) also consume allocated API requests and this is where you will need to pay more attention - especially in environments with relative high integration volume and low volume of fully licensed users.

So let's take an example to illustrate the increases in default allocated API capacity - suppose you expect 1 million API calls in a 24 hour period in your tenant and you have 100 users with Dynamics 365 licenses in your environment - then you either need to purchase a number of licensing packs - list price +/- 50€ per month per pack (but I recommend reaching out to your licensing partner to get an up to date quote) or use the new Pay as You Go subscription model which is currently in preview. 

The available capacity has been upped quite significantly with allocated base capacity now at 500.000 API calls (previously 100.000 API calls) and an additional 5.000 calls per licensed Dynamics 365 user (see Non-licensed user request limits  for details and exceptions). Also the number of API calls per licensing pack has increased to 50.000 (previously 10.000)

The list price of the licensing pack which I found seems to be 50€ per month per pack (I would recommend reaching out to your licensing partner to get an exact price) which seems to be similar to the price in the past if my memory serves my As part of the pay as you go model there will be a separate meter available - see Pay-as-you-go meters - Power Platform requests.

Currently you can only view the number API requests in the Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC) on a per environment basis in the dashboard for Dataverse API call statistics - if you can't wait for the new reporting to become available I would recommend starting from this one to get an indication of number of API calls.

References:

• What is a Microsoft Power Platform request?
• Non-licensed user request limits
• Power Apps and Power Automate capacity add-on
• Optimizing Power Platform requests by @timopertila
• New entitlement limits announced by @crmgustaf
• My previous blogposts on Power Platform and Dynamics 365 API request entitlements (February 2021) and Update on Dynamics 365/CDS request limits (January 2020)
• Power Automate Flow API Updates - 16 takeaways